Content marketing works. According to Statista, in 2017 alone, content marketing services revenue were expected to reach $32.1 billion—a $4 million jump from 2016.

With so many businesses trying to leverage on everything content marketing can do for their brand, it’s important that you pay close attention to what you should and shouldn’t do.

For beginners, here are some mistakes in content marketing that you should definitely avoid:

1. Not recognizing the role SEO plays in content marketing

SEO and content marketing, as marketing strategies, shouldn’t be used exclusively. It’s not a choice of one or the other. In my years in marketing, I’ve come to realize that both strategies are linked. Doing so maximizes your potential to be reached by quality prospects and raising your profile on search engines.

2. Assuming that bigger budgets deliver bigger results

When you’re trying to promote something, traditional methods usually dictate that the big budgets will also yield big results. For a long time, this was true. If you had the money for a full, centerspread in a newspaper, or a 2 minute commercial during the Superbowl, or a giant billboard in the busiest highways, then you can certainly bring more attention to your brand.

However, this isn’t always the case in content marketing, where strategy is arguably more important than budget. You could have a limited amount of money to spend, but if you know where to speak and dedicate your money where it counts, you could bring in significant ROIs.

3. Forgetting about quality

While it’s true that search engine algorithms generally see volume of content as a factor for credibility, always remember that you’re not producing content for algorithms either. At the end of the day, you’re writing for a real, human audience. Actual readers will be responsible for sharing your posts, liking it, following your page, and engaging with your content. This means quality should always be your priority.

4. Not engaging with your audience

Hinging off the previous point, once your audience engages with you, be sure to use this as an opportunity to build a connection with them. Be sure to answer their questions, create conversations, or like their comments. Even a simple thank you for taking the time to share your posts shows your audience that you’re a brand that cares about what their audience has to say.

5. Not utilizing social media

Content marketing isn’t just about blog posts—keep that in mind. Once you publish your blog, after you design your graphics, you need a platform that will put it out there in front of your audience—especially if you don’t have a significant following on your website yet.

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Most marketers rely on Facebook to do this, but platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and others are slowly gaining more business use.

Hope this answers your question. If you have any more, feel free to reach out to me via Leadspanda and I’ll happily get back to you as soon as I can personally.